Today, network service providers have to inventory and select multiple pieces of hardware from multiple different vendors based primarily on the access medium being used (such as ADSL, VDSL, GPON, T1, etc.). For customers, when switching between one access technology to another (due to access technology limitations at particular geographical locations or due to the customers' decision to change services that requires a change in access technology, or the like), whole pieces of access technology have to be provided to the customer (while the old access hardware has to be shipped back to the service provider), which may require truck rolls or technician support on the part of the service provider to bring the customers' new network access technology online. This process is time consuming (for both the service provider and for the customers) and costly (in terms of equipment, technician support, service charges or fees, etc.).
Hence, there is a need for more robust and scalable solutions for implementing network communications, and, more particularly, to methods, systems, and apparatuses for implementing universal broadband network gateway functionality.